“He is my friend,” Khan said. “Was my friend. I’m the one who gets first shot. To think he would turn into a man who would seduce a woman, convince her to be his mistress—”
“We seduced each other,” Emily said.
Caleb shut his eyes. “Em. We don’t need details.”
“But it’s true.” She stepped out of her brother’s arms, took her napkin from the table and blew her nose in it. “I wanted to sleep with Marco.”
Jake grimaced. Travis ran his hands through his hair.
“And I wasn’t his mistress. I worked for him. I was his PA. His AA. I was damned good at my job. I earned my pay legitimately, and I’m surprised that you would think I’d do anything less.”
“I didn’t,” Jake said. “We didn’t. It’s just that—”
“When Laurel and I walked into that apartment and saw you, we were shocked. I had no idea—”
“I’m amazed,” Emily said coldly, “you didn’t fly straight here to tell my brothers what a—a fallen woman I’d become.”
Khan rubbed his face with his hands.
“I had no wish to do that. Even when I realized that we had walked in just as Santini was ending your—your relationship. I told you, I would not have spoken of it but for what happened here today, what your family told me of your distress.”
“I am not distressed! And he wasn’t ending it.” One lie out of two. Considering her average, that wasn’t bad.
“Emily. I saw it with my own eyes. His coldness. His rage. He was in the middle of—of telling you that it was over when Laurel and I arrived.”
“You’re wrong. Everything was fine until you showed up.”
“Great!” Travis shook his head, paced to the stove, then paced back. “It’s your fault the SOB dumped her.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Of course it wasn’t Khan’s fault.” She ran the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip. “And he didn’t dump me. Not the way you think. We were—we were in love.”
“Until he got tired of you, the no-good—”
“No,” Khan said.
They all looked at him. For the first time, he seemed uncertain.
Travis frowned. “What do you mean, no?”
“Laurel said it didn’t make sense.”
“A man taking advantage of our sister? Goddamned right, it doesn’t make sense.”
“Not that. What we saw... ” Khan shook his head. “I spoke with Marco that afternoon. He invited us to dinner. I said I wanted him to meet Laurel. And he said that he wanted me to meet someone, too.”
“So what?”
“So, why would he have wanted to introduce Emily to us if he were planning to end their relationship? It makes no sense but then, neither does the fact that the woman he said he wanted me to meet was named Emily Madison.”
Silence.
The Wildes looked at him. At each other. And then, finally, at Emily.
“That’s who he thought I was,” she said in a small voice. “Emily Madison.”
“Why?”
The word came from four throats. Emily gave a deep sigh.